Alexander 'Molen' Mole

Hey! I’m Alex (though most folks call me Molen) I’m one of two Principal Engineers here at Fuse, and I mostly focus on gameplay experience systems – things like game modes, UX/UI, and AI. I love building things that delight people, and I love making systems work better – and best of all, I love collaborating with folks with different perspectives and skillsets to make things that feel more than the sum of their parts. My favourite games tend to be ones where I can lose myself in a world for hours, or have amazing game feel, or ideally both!

_favourite Game

Fez

_favourite BOOK

Calvin & Hobbes: Scientific Progress goes Boink

_Currently learning

to play synth better

Questions & Answers

Earliest gaming memory?

Answer

Sitting around an Atari 800 playing bafflingly complex and wonderful games with my parents & sister.

What was the game that triggered you looking at games as a career?

Answer

Hard to pick just one, but modding Quake 1 was a big deal. It blew my mind realising that a chicken proximity mine was something I could make and play with.

What did you study at School or Uni that you feel was valuable for a career in games?

Answer

In high school, I started learning how to make games for MS-DOS with some friends. At the time, there were some huge and expensive books that were like holy texts for us – although these days the internet is likely to have much better information... I also learned a lot by making mods for games I loved. Maths and Computing A-Levels were where I started getting serious about becoming a coder in the games industry. (I took Pure Maths A-Level, but Applied or Stats might have been more useful) At uni, I took a BSc(Hons) Computer Games Technology at Abertay. That was a great course from the perspective of being very games-focused and being very varied, so by the end of the degree course I’d had some time with everything from 3D modelling, to tools programming, to making 2D and 3D games on PC and console – by myself and with a team.

Game that has inspired you the most?

Answer

Tomb Raider 1 - I was so fascinated by it that I wrote a letter to the devs!

What was the first game you worked on?

Answer

Crackdown.

Games you’re the proudest to have worked on?

Answer

Burnout Paradise and Need for Speed Unbound

If you weren't making games?

Answer

I’d be engineering some other thing – maybe synthesisers.

Top 3 games of all time?

Answer

#1 - Nuclear Throne #2 - No Man’s Sky #3 - Tomb Raider 1

Hardest game boss?

Answer

I’m Not A Fan of boss fights so there are a lot, but probably Ganon in Link to the Past.

Answer

_TIME REMAINING